1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an information processing system and, more particularly, to a system in which various kinds of information from information supply terminals are distributed from an information transfer device to a number of consumer terminals through a transmission line, and information from consumers responsive to the distributed information is classified and transferred to information supply terminals such that the responsive information from the consumers can be acknowledged any time at the information supply terminals by reviewing their recording medium.
2. Prior Art
Commercial information on products or services were conventionally brought into customer's attention mainly through newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, and so forth.
In a typical conventional aspect, manufacturers or distributors of products transmit such information through these media in form of an advertisement or publicity, and consumers select and purchase desired products, getting knowledge on the products from the advertisement or publicity.
The recent development of computers and realization of information transmission systems using computer networks that connects a plurality of computers via a transmission line have given the possibility of a completely new form of media for supplying commercial information on products or services, and the new medium is becoming practical along with developments of personal computers and application software for very easily connecting personal computers to the internet.
In a computer network, a plurality of terminal computers can be connected any time to share external hardware, data or other sources by transmission. Although individual computers have different operation systems in most cases, they can be connected with each other under a predetermined communication protocol. Currently, international joint of such networks (Local Area Network, Bulletin Board System) is called internet and used as a worldwide information transmission system.
It appears that a large number of computers are already connected to the internet. Such computers include a number of information supply systems (servers) for distributing various information services. Therefore, by using different servers on the internet, all kinds of information can be obtained.
The reason of the remarkable progress of the internet must be the new form of transfer of information, namely, in form of soft copy (electronic copy) in lieu of paper (hard copy).
Important functions of the internet are (1) exchange of electronic mails (hereinafter called e-mails), (2) searches for desired information, (3) transmission or information, (4) transfer of files or a large amount of data, (5) direct use of computers in remote sites, among others, and these functions are utilized to realize a new form of commerce of products and services, which is different from conventional one.
That is, advertisement, publicity or other information on products or services are filed and opened to the public in form of home pages in a computer network. As the computer network accumulates a lot of such information, it makes a huge shopping center in its electronic virtual space.
In a typical mode, a consumer will obtain information on products or services through his own terminal computer, and will send an e-mail to the supplier of the information at one of addresses displayed on his computer in order to order any desired product or service or to request further information on the product or service.
In such conventional systems, however, suppliers of products or services must prepare their own computers or other like equipment, and must connect them to a network via one or more providers in most cases. Therefore, they must bear expenses on computers or other equipment and on services of providers, and must deal with various complicated jobs with their computers to monitor arrival of e-mails from time to time, for example. Particularly, the job of monitoring arrival of mails is a troublesome task for the user due to the need for starting the computer every time.